As the use of the Internet to purchase various commodities becomes more and more common, merchants must find ways to sell such commodities online if they wish to remain competitive. Some commodities, however, are difficult to sell online because of consumer resistance, the nature of the commodity itself, or a combination of factors. For example, diamonds have historically been a commodity that is purchased in-person because of their high cost and unique nature. But purchasing a diamond in person has its own drawbacks.
Most conventional “bricks and mortar” diamond retailers cannot afford to maintain a significant number of diamonds in stock because of the high cost associated with purchasing, securely storing and insuring the diamonds. Each diamond varies in terms of shape, weight, color, clarity and cut. As a result, it is difficult for a consumer to compare prices when selecting diamonds in-person because it is highly unlikely that stores in the consumer's area will have two diamonds that are similar enough in terms of these characteristics to enable a suitable comparison. If a consumer truly wanted to compare prices of two very similar diamonds, the consumer would probably have to travel to many different stores in a wide area before finding two diamonds that are both similar enough for a reasonable price comparison and match the consumer's desired characteristics.
Therefore, for purposes of price comparisons and selection, it would be beneficial for a consumer to shop for diamonds—or any type of commodity—online. Consumers, however, are still likely to be hesitant to purchase a diamond online because it is difficult to visualize what a diamond, if purchased loose, will look like in a setting. For example, a ring setting may make a diamond look larger or smaller depending on the width of the band or other factors. A diamond merchant that wishes to conduct business online may attempt to provide a picture of each diamond so a consumer can see what the diamond looks like. This would involve taking a picture of every diamond in inventory in some standardized manner and then storing the picture in memory. When a consumer requests to see the picture, the merchant's server would have to send the picture to the consumer's computer. If the consumer wishes to compare a number of diamonds, numerous pictures would have to be sent to the consumer's computer. Such a mechanism for illustrating the diamond's appearance is costly in terms of labor to take the pictures, storage space and bandwidth. And, in any event, such effort may not be warranted because consumers usually just want to have an idea of what a diamond looks like, and seeing a picture of the exact diamond is unnecessary.
In addition, a server that hosts a merchant website may be a secure server, with the attendant security firewalls and other protective features. While these protective features help to ensure a secure Internet session with a consumer, the features slow down the process of providing information to a consumer because all of the security processes that must take place. Likewise, the client may have firewall or other protective features that also slow down the process of receiving information. Even if the server is not a secure server, the high volume of Internet traffic many servers experience dictates that the number of times a consumer computer has to access the server should be minimized.